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Genus SYRNIUM. 



Strix apud Linnaeus, Syst. Nat. i. p. 132 (1766). 



Syrnium, Savigny, Ois. de l'Egypte, p. 52 (1810). 



TJlula apud Stephens in Shaw's Gen. Zool. xii. pt. 2, p. 60 (1826), 



Sumia apud Stephens, torn. cit. p. 40 (1826). 



Aluco apud Kaup, Natiirl. Syst. p. 44 (1829). 



Scotiaptex apud Swainson, Classif. of B. ii. p. 216 (1837). 



Ptynx apud G. E. Gray, List of Gen. of B. p. 8 (1841). 



According to Mr. R. B. Sharpe this genus contains twenty-nine species, which are distributed 

 over the Palsearctic, Ethiopian, Oriental. Nearctic, and Neotropical Regions, three species only 

 inhabiting the Western Palsearctic Begion. 



They are nocturnal in their habits, and frequent woods and groves, especially where there 

 are plenty of hollow trees or densely shadowed places in which they can pass the day in safe 

 concealment. Like all the nocturnal Owls their flight is extremely soft and noiseless ; and their 

 call-note is a clear, loud hoot, or a weird and loud scream like wild laughter. They feed on 

 small mammals, birds, insects, and even fish and frogs, and search for their prey almost exclu- 

 sively by night. They breed rather early in the year, either depositing their roundish white 

 eggs in the hollow of a tree, in ruins, or barns, or else taking possession of some deserted nest ; 

 and Syrnium aluco has been known to nest in rabbit-burrows. Some species breed in forests far 

 away from human habitations, whereas others appear to prefer localities close to houses, and 

 even nest in barns which are regularly used, and amply repay the hospitality shown them by 

 destroying numbers of rats and mice. 



Syrnium aluco, the type of the genus, has the bill stout, decurved from the base, lower 

 mandible notched ; nostrils large, roundish, placed near the centre, the mandible partially con- 

 cealed by stiff feathers ; head large, round, without tufts ; conch somewhat elliptical, extending 

 from the level of the upper part of the eye to the base of the lower jaw, and having an anterior 

 semicircular operculum ; facial disks large, complete ; wings rather short, rounded, first quill 

 shorter than the secondaries, the second shorter than the sixth, the fourth and fifth longest ; tail 

 rather long, slightly rounded; legs and toes feathered nearly to the claws; claws long, curved, 

 acute, grooved below. 



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